disciplined Dreaming

Editorial Reviews
Review
“In today’s fiercely competitive global marketplace the most important resource any business has is the creative thinking of its people. In Disciplined Dreaming, Josh Linkner lays out a road map that will guide individuals, teams, and companies to higher levels of creativity. It is a journey that will lead to better ideas and breakthrough thinking—and those who take it will also have a lot of fun along the way.”
—Bill Ford, executive chairman, Ford Motor Company
“The creativity gap is real and it’s getting worse. Josh Linkner challenges you to become a disruptive force for change, and I hope you will.”
—Seth Godin, author, Linchpin and Purple Cow

“Josh Linkner is a tremendous business leader who has established a successful and sustainable company, as well as a culture that nurtures employees to help them maximize their potential.”
—Hon. Jennifer M. Granholm, governor, State of Michigan

“At Zappos, one of our core values is to be adventurous, creative, and open-minded. Disciplined Dreaming can help spark your creative potential.”
—Tony Hsieh, CEO, Zappos.com and author, Delivering Happiness

“The world has changed dramatically, and we have now entered a new era of creativity. Disciplined Dreaming is a roadmap to new ideas, and helps business leaders at all levels unleash their creativity in order to reach their full potential. This important and thoughtful book is a must-read to compete in the next era of business, and life.”
—Charlene Li, founder, Altimiter Group and author, Groundswell and Open Leadership

“There’s a lot business people can learn from jazz musicians. The days of managing by musical score are gone—today, victory goes to the improviser. If you are not tinkering with your business every day, sooner or later the markets will begin to tinker with you—and it won’t be pleasant. Disciplined Dreaming helps you avoid these pitfalls and provides a systematic approach to becoming that winning improviser.”
—Keith McFarland, #1 best-selling author, The Breakthrough Company and Bounce

“It is often said there are dreamers and there are doers. Never before has someone connected the dots and clarified the path between ‘dreaming’ and ‘doing’ like Josh Linkner has in Disciplined Dreaming. This is a must-read for the innovators and creators who want to cross over to the execution side and make their dreams come to life.”
—Dan Gilbert, chairman and founder, Quicken Loads, and majority owner, Cleveland Cavaliers

“Creativity fuels the growth engine that drives results. Disciplined Dreaming gives us a practical and inspirational roadmap to move us from incremental improvements to radical breakthroughs. Josh Linkner has successfully built some of the most creative companies in the world and shows us the way.”
—Jeff DeGraff, professor, Ross School of Business, University of Michigan and author, Leading Innovation and Creativity at Work

“Now all those days I spent dreaming can be put to good use. Disciplined Dreaming helps you harness your creativity. Well worth your time.”
—Keith Crain, chairman and CEO, Crain Communications

“In Disciplined Dreaming, Josh Linkner offers a guide for encouraging and protecting creativity as one of the few sustainable advantages in a relentlessly competitive environment. I would recommend it highly for the leaders and advisors to any high growth organization.”
—Victor E. Parker, managing director, Spectrum Equity Investors

Product Description
A 5-part process that will transform your organization — or your career — into a non-stop creativity juggernaut
We live in an era when business cycles are measured in months, not years. The only way to sustain long term innovation and growth is through creativity-at all levels of an organization. Disciplined Dreaming shows you how to create profitable new ideas, empower all your employees to be creative, and sustain your competitive advantage over the long term. Linkner distills his years of experience in business and jazz — as well as hundreds of interviews with CEOs, entrepreneurs, and artists — into a 5-step process that will make creativity easy for you and your organization. The methodology is simple, backed by proven results.

Empowers individuals, teams, and organizations to meet creative challenges posed by the marketplace
Turns the mystery of creativity into a simple-to-use process
Shows how creativity can be used for everything from innovative, game-shifting breakthroughs to incremental advances and daily improvements to business processes
Offers dozens of practical exercises, thought-starters, workouts to grow "creative muscles," and case studies
Disciplined Dreaming shows even the stuffiest corporate bureaucracies how to cultivate creativity in order to become more competitive in today's shifting marketplace.

#8 New York Times Bestseller (Hardcover Business)

#2 Wall Street Journal Bestseller (Hardcover Business)

#9 Wall Street Journal Bestseller (Hardcover Nonfiction)

#9 Washington Post Bestseller (Nonfiction Hardcover)

#1 USA Today Bestseller (Money)

#10 Publishers Weekly Bestseller (Nonfiction)

Q&A with Author Josh Linkner

Author Josh Linkner
Why is creativity in the workplace so important?
The world has dramatically changed in the last few years, and many of the competitive advantages of the past have become commoditized. With increased complexity, dizzying speed, and ruthless competition now commonplace in business, creativity and innovation have become the only true sustainable competitive advantage. Creativity is the one thing you can’t outsource. It’s the difference between game-changing companies and also-rans. Individuals may get hired based on their resumes, but they get promoted and succeed based on their creativity. Creativity has become the currency of success in the new era of business, and life.

What is Disciplined Dreaming?
Disciplined Dreaming is a five-part system to build, nurture, and manage creativity. It is based on my experience as a four-time entrepreneur, jazz musician, and venture capitalist, plus personal interviews I conducted with over 200 thought leaders--CEOs, entrepreneurs, artists, billionaires, nonprofit leaders. I developed Disciplined Dreaming by distilling the collective wisdom of this amazing group into a simple, easy-to-follow process that you can put to use immediately to drive your own creativity.

An accomplished musician yourself, you compare creative riffs at work to jazz improvisation. How do the two relate?
In jazz, 99 percent of the notes are improvised. Spontaneous creativity. However, that 1 percent that’s on the written page is incredibly important. It provides musicians with a framework to direct and enhance their creativity. Disciplined Dreaming is the business-world equivalent to that 1 percent. It provides a structure that enables creativity. In addition, jazz musicians use specific patterns and techniques as building blocks of innovation. I’ve been able to translate many of those concepts into the language of business, and I show readers how to inject them into their daily lives. These “riffs” can be applied to creative challenges of all sizes, and they help support the creative process.

How can you start working creativity muscles with a team that has grown stagnant?
The biggest inhibitor of creativity isn’t human potential, it is fear. While we enter the world with limitless creativity, our schools, organizations, and bureaucracies beat it out of us. We are so worried about saying the wrong thing, looking foolish, or having to take responsibility for a new idea that we govern our own imagination. Too often, corporate cultures stifle their most valuable natural resource—fresh ideas. This can be quickly fixed through using techniques in the book that deal with preparing your culture, physical environment, and mind-set to drive maximum creative output. Disciplined Dreaming includes new brainstorming techniques such as “RoleStorming,” “The Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup,” and “Stick-it-to-the-man,” which will get your creative muscles in shape in no time.
From the Inside Flap
"As economies and world markets continue to change, businesses are constantly being pulled into cost cutting, automation, and risk management. Although these are important elements of business success, we can't lose sight of the driving force of prosperity, the reason that any company exists in the first place, the source of both business and human fulfillment: creativity."—From the Introduction

In Disciplined Dreaming, business innovator and jazz musician Josh Linkner shows exactly how you can create profitable new ideas, empower employees to flex their creative muscles, and tap into the power of creativity to sustain a competitive advantage over the long haul. Drawing on interviews with hundreds of successful CEOs, entrepreneurs, and artists, Linkner distills exactly how creativity can be encouraged, as well as its impact on the bottom line.

Disciplined Dreaming outlines a proven, easy-to-apply 5-step process—Ask, Prepare, Discover, Ignite, and Launch—that will help you and your team develop your creativity chops. Through illustrative stories, real-world examples, and fun yet practical exercises, Linkner shows leaders and team builders how to become immediately more effective in discovering new routes to profitable solutions.

Designed to be flexible, Disciplined Dreaming clearly demonstrates how creativity can be used for everything from innovative, game-shifting breakthroughs to incremental advances and daily improvements to business processes. With Disciplined Dreaming, even the most resistant corporate bureaucracies can cultivate creativity and become more competitive in today's shifting marketplace.

From the Back Cover
Praise for Disciplined Dreaming

"In today's fiercely competitive global marketplace the most important resource any business has is the creative thinking of its people. In Disciplined Dreaming, Josh Linkner lays out a road map that will guide individuals, teams, and companies to higher levels of creativity. It is a journey that will lead to better ideas and breakthrough thinking—and those who take it will also have a lot of fun along the way."—Bill Ford, executive chairman, Ford Motor Company

"Disciplined Dreaming is a road map to new ideas, and helps business leaders at all levels unleash their creativity in order to reach their full potential. This important and thoughtful book is a must-read to compete in the next era of business and life."—Charlene Li, founder, Altimiter Group, and author, Groundswell and Open Leadership

"At Zappos, one of our core values is to be adventurous, creative, and open-minded. Disciplined Dreaming can help spark your creative potential."—Tony Hsieh, CEO, Zappos.com, and author, Delivering Happiness

"Josh Linkner is a tremendous business leader who has established a successful and sustainable company, as well as a culture that nurtures employees to help them maximize their potential." —Jennifer M. Granholm, governor, State of Michigan

"There's a lot business people can learn from jazz musicians. The days of managing by musical score are gone—today, victory goes to the improviser. If you are not tinkering with your business every day, sooner or later the markets will begin to tinker with you—and it won't be pleasant. Disciplined Dreaming helps you avoid these pitfalls and provides a systematic approach to becoming that winning improviser."—Keith McFarland, author, The Breakthrough Company and Bounce

"The creativity gap is real and it's getting worse. Josh Linkner challenges you to become a disruptive force for change, and I hope you will." -Seth Godin

About the Author
Josh Linkner is founder and chairman of ePrize, a dominant player in the promotions industry serving 74 of the top 100 brands. He is a four-time entrepreneur, venture capitalist, accomplished jazz musician, and highly sought-after keynote speaker. He has won several business, technology, and design awards, including the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award, Crain's 40 under 40, Automation Alley's CEO of the Year, and the Detroit Executive of the Year.

For more information, please visit www.joshlinkner.com